Something Is Happening Here

Michael Mandelbaum, director of the Project on East-West Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a member of the delegation that visited Moscow. He is also coauthor, with TIME's Strobe Talbott, of the new book Reagan and Gorbachev. Mandelbaum wrote this report on the trip for TIME:

"You've come at an exciting time," one of the Soviet officials said as he greeted us. Indeed we had. Something is happening here.

The week before our arrival Mikhail Gorbachev had made a major speech at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He blasted the outmoded practices of the past, stressed his determination to proceed with the changes already in motion and proposed some startling innovations in the Soviet political system, including competitive elections for important posts.

The impact of Gorbachev's policies was apparent everywhere we went: in the stately meeting hall of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; in the ornate guesthouse of the Foreign Ministry; in the homey, book-lined apartment of Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner; and in the conference room of the headquarters of the Central Committee where, with pictures of Marx and Lenin peering down at us, we had a three-hour meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Russian term for the new program is "perestroika," restructuring. It includes another frequently used term, "democratization" -- the greater involvement of the Soviet people in the management of their society. An important part of this is a "new way of thinking," which offers far greater room than ever before for fresh ideas, the discussion of previously taboo subjects and official candor. At every meeting we encountered examples of this new thinking.

We were given a straightforward appraisal of the problems of the Soviet economy that could have come from an American economist. Western observers often tell stories of bizarre inefficiencies, like the setting of the price of children's clothing so low that taxi drivers buy it to clean their windshields. But this story came from a high party official.

We had candid discussions of the two sides' positions in the arms-control talks, in which Soviet officials explored positions beyond those their government has officially taken and about which they disagreed with one another.

We heard references to a broad range of new economic initiatives, including previously forbidden ideas such as competition, market pricing and profit. An important figure in the Soviet establishment characterized the old system of censorship as irrational and outmoded. Perhaps the most vivid example of change was the chance we had to talk with Andrei Sakharov, a meeting that, as % he noted, only two months before could not have taken place. He and his wife were gracious hosts -- he braving the cold and the gaggle of waiting reporters and photographers to greet us outside their apartment building, she serving us tea and homemade cake during our two-hour visit.

A tired-looking man with a gentle, precise manner, Sakharov emphasized the significance of the campaign of democratization and the need for it to continue. The political situation in the Soviet Union is complicated, he noted, and there is certainly opposition to the reforms. But he told us that he considered Gorbachev an able politician whose chances of success in overcoming the opposition he considered good.